


Chuck Versus What Happens In Vegas—Part One (Chuck 6.01)

by anthropocene



Series: Chuck Season 6 [1]
Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon Compliant, Espionage, F/M, Romance, Science Fiction, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 04:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropocene/pseuds/anthropocene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post-series Chuck story—and the first episode of an imaginary Season 6 of "Chuck."<br/>As a reunited Chuck and Sarah begin to rebuild their life together, their C.I. firm is contracted by the CIA for a mysterious high-tech project near Las Vegas. With Morgan, Alex, and unexpected guests—it's a second honeymoon in Sin City, and a Dam crazy cyber-caper with major implications for Chuck and Sarah's future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story—if it were an actual program—would probably be equivalent to the first hour of a two-hour season premiere. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> There is a SOUNDTRACK for this episode (as in the actual series). Music cues are embedded in the text, and you can listen while you read! The soundtrack is available on 8tracks dot com; just search on the tag “anthropocene.” You can also find a direct link to the soundtrack on my author Bio page.
> 
> I appreciate hearing from my readers at any time...whether you liked the story or not, or have comments or questions. Even just a few words are always welcome. This is the only compensation a FF author ever gets. So please send me a comment via the box at the end of each chapter...and THANK YOU!
> 
> Disclaimer: Like everyone else writing in this community, I don't own Chuck, but I love the show and its characters.

**(PROLOGUE)**

**Late night, Echo Park, California**

Invisible against the urban sky, smaller and quieter than a pigeon, a miniature drone helicopter rises from the Hollywood Hills and swoops down toward the nearby Echo Park neighborhood. It hovers above a familiar red-tile roofed apartment complex and begins to scan the entire structure with a set of different sensing devices.

A raven-haired woman with an iPad sits at a desk in an otherwise empty office a short distance away. She controls the drone helicopter and the sensing devices with practiced movements of her fingertips across the screen. She sweeps for live alarms and finds none. She peers through the roof of the complex and downward into the apartments, inch by inch, like the individual slices of a CAT scan. She finds two people sitting together in one of the apartments, and none in any of the others.

"It's clear," the woman says softly to her iPad.

A man and a woman wearing what appear to be Los Angeles Police uniforms walk toward the apartment complex from a vehicle parked on the next block. They enter the central courtyard and find the building to be silent, except for the gentle bubbling of the decorative fountain in its midst. While the woman keeps watch, the man steps quietly to the front door of the apartment in the back.

In about ten seconds, the bogus policeman efficiently picks both the lock and the deadbolt, and opens the door just a crack. From his shirt pocket, he takes out a black plastic vial slightly larger than a double-A battery. He pulls a cap off one end and points the open end through the partially opened door. Three tiny objects shoot out of the vial and tumble into the apartment. Just before hitting the floor, each object pops out a set of wings and flutters upward to affix itself to the ceiling. The devices look exactly like moths.

The bogus policeman quietly closes the door, and he and his partner disappear back into the peaceful neighborhood.

Meanwhile, in the office, the raven-haired woman opens a new window on her iPad and takes control of the three drone moths. She pilots them around the apartment, looking into darkened hallways and rooms with tiny infrared eyes, until she locates the bedroom. She parks one in the living room, one in a hallway, and the third atop the frame of a _Tron_ movie poster on a wall in the bedroom. With their wings retracted, they are all but out of sight, but their infrared gaze gives their operator clear views of the front door, the hallway, and the bed.

* * *

**Moments later, in the adjoining apartment**

Morgan and his girlfriend Alex hear nothing of the swift intrusion next door. They're together on the couch in their living room. Morgan watches a kung-fu movie with the volume turned almost down to zero, while Alex sleeps, murmuring softly from time to time, with her head cradled in his lap. Morgan is exhausted and wishes they were both in bed, but he can't sleep. Not until he's learned what's happening with Chuck. Chuck's been gone for hours now and hasn't called or texted. Morgan sits, glancing from the screen to his phone to the window and back to the screen, with drowsiness battling anxiety and hope for his friends:

_Did he find her? Did he kiss her? Does she remember?_

* * *

**About the same time, on the coast at Malibu**

_(Music: "Looking for a Sign," by Beck)_

Chuck and Sarah cuddle in the dark on an empty strand of beach, sharing slow, deep kisses. His arms encircle her. Her fingers lazily caress the back of his neck. Their eyes are closed and faintly moist from tears. Neither of them has spoken for a long while.

But the tide is rising and the waves are edging closer, and finally one of them reaches far enough to sweep over her sandals and his black Chuck Taylor sneakers. Startled by the chilly water, Sarah and Chuck stumble backwards up the slope of the beach—then tumble when Chuck loses his balance. He falls, and Sarah lands across his lap, and they're crosswise on their backs in the sand, laughing and looking up at the sky.

"Whoa," says Chuck after their laughter subsides. "I didn't notice it got dark out."

"Me neither." Sarah rolls over on top of him and nestles her head into his chest. "And we're still here. Guess _I_ didn't realize how much I just needed to feel _good_ again—feel something real again." Her unruly blonde hair tickles Chuck's nose and smells like the salt spray. "Being here like this, with you, just feels so comfortable...and familiar. We've had some practice at this, haven't we?"

"Oh yeah. Sometimes even in the middle of deadly situations."

Sarah grins and turns her face toward Chuck's. "Well that makes sense, because by now you're probably dying to know if Morgan was right."

"I am—but like you said, we're still here." He gently caresses her back. "I'm pretty good with that."

"Me too." Sarah wriggles her body against his. "Okay," she continues, "so how do I put this? You know, umm, that spies like us sometimes have to do a mission even when we don't have complete intel...right?"

"Right, yeah..." Chuck replies, hesitantly.

"That's kind of what this is like. Chuck, I'm here now because I do trust you, and I believe in our story. There hasn't been any big rush of memories returning—sorry, Morgan—but our kiss was still magical in a different way. Does all this sound crazy to you?"

"No, no, no...not at all. Sarah, after what you've been through—"

She shakes her head. "It's what _we've_ been through, Chuck. I understand that now. What I'm trying to say is...I'm _feeling_ it now—I mean feeling it _again_. I don't just _know_ it, I _feel_ that I loved you and I'm sure I still do. I want this, Chuck. I want to be with you."

They're both trembling now, and their eyes begin to tear up again, so Chuck wraps his arms around Sarah and they kiss some more, with greater fervor, entwined on the sand. When they stop, Sarah looks wistful.

"Of course I want the rest of it back too," she says, "I want to remember my life... _our_ life."

Chuck squeezes her reassuringly. "You will, baby. Your memories are coming back." 

She nods. "With help. I really think it helps when I'm with you, or when I'm in places that are important. Important to _us_ that is—like this beach."

Her eyes fix on his. "So...umm, Chuck...?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you take me home now?"

"Right away," Chuck whispers, half-choked with emotion.

"I _am_ going to find myself again," Sarah continues. "I don't know how long that will take, but I do know I need to be with you...and I want to be _home_."

Her voice falters. "Chuck...I love you, and I know you love me...but it could be a long way back to being the wife you knew. You'll be patient with me, won't you?"

"Sarah, I promise you that...and more. Actually, I'm thinking of this as the two of us discovering each other all over again, and that sounds like fun." After a moment, he adds, "At whatever pace works for you, of course."

"I like that," Sarah says, more confidently. "Fun and adventure."

"Well, the two of us were always good at adventure," replies Chuck with a grin.

Sarah closes her eyes as Chuck rocks her gently in his arms. Then it occurs to her—"Do we have time to—like you say—rediscover each other? Can we drop...well, whatever we were doing before, just like that? Chuck, what _were_ we doing before Quinn?"

Chuck laughs. "We were on our second or maybe third 'one last mission.' But now, we're really done, we're out, we're free to start something all new. We have all the time in the world and just enough money, I'd say. And, lots more of _that_ , if and when our lawyers figure out how to unfreeze our—"

"We have _lawyers_?"

"Oh yes, we do. _Spy_ lawyers. Perfect for the job. Same firm that Verbanski uses to keep her firm out of trouble with foreign governments and such. In fact, she recommended them to us, and _you_ were the one who actually wrote up the contract for their services."

"Chuck," Sarah asks sheepishly, "who's Verbanski?"

"A story unto herself. One of the friends I'll enjoy helping you recall."

"When we're _home_. Oh, Chuck, that sounds so good to me. But...what about the...that _house_? You know, where I almost..." Sarah shudders in his arms. "You told me it was my dream home, but now, I don't think I could set foot in there again."

"One mission at a time," Chuck softly replies. "Like you used to say to me. Just know that you'll always have a place to go, where you'll be safe and where you can heal."

"Mmm." She slips her arms around his neck and kisses him. "I'm ready to go, Chuck."

They get to their feet and start walking, hand in hand, toward the dimly lit beachfront parking lot. Her black Lotus Evora and his humble Nerd Herder are the only two vehicles still there, sitting just two spaces apart.

"C'mere a second." Sarah opens the trunk of the Lotus. There's only one small suitcase inside.

"I've already left the hotel," she explains while opening the suitcase. "No matter what, I decided I wasn't going back there. I didn't take much with me—just my weapons and my mission logs. And these."

Sarah reaches into the case and takes out...her engagement and wedding rings.

Chuck gasps. She holds the rings out to him as her eyes tear up once more.

"Everything else in that hotel room was planted by Quinn. All part of his big lie. These are the only things that were never, ever a lie. Chuck...I love you, and I trust you, and I want to wear these again. Would you...?"

He sighs deeply, gets down on one knee in front of Sarah, and gently slips both rings onto her finger. She looks at them for a moment, then bends forward to embrace Chuck. "So sweet," she murmurs in his ear. "I love you."

"I love you too, baby," Chuck replies, and kisses her joyfully before getting back to his feet. "If you want, I'll leave the Herder here and ride with you."

"No, you don't have to." says Sarah. "I'll just follow you home."

He grins and nods toward the Lotus. "You sure you can keep up with me in that old beater?"

She elbows him in the ribs. "Ha! Just try and shake me."

Sarah and Chuck kiss once more, then with hearts racing, they jump into their cars and speed off, cat-and-mouse fashion, back into the welcoming city...

_(Music: "Together Forever In Love," by Go Sailor)_

...and when they are still about ten minutes away from their apartment, they are spotted by the mysterious raven-haired woman with the drone helicopter.

_(Opening credits and "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" theme by Cake)_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck. I'm just having a little trouble letting go of the story.

**Some time after midnight, Chuck and Sarah's apartment**

In the shower, Chuck rinses the sand from his feet and the salt from his hair. He steps out, throws on a bathrobe, and walks quickly to the bedroom closet without looking around.

"So what _do_ you wear on your first night back together?" he mutters to himself. He thinks about it for a moment and decides to put on a plain gray T-shirt and a baggy, unsexy pair of boxer shorts.

Sarah is stretched full-length across their bed, in a demure powder-blue nightgown with her feet in a pair of white gym socks and her damp hair up in a towel around her head. She's gazing at a shelf full of framed pictures: most of them depicting her looking radiantly happy with Chuck, in different places all over the world.

"Beautiful," Sarah hears Chuck say, barely above a whisper. She turns to him with an affectionate smile and heavy eyes.

"There's so much I want to ask you, but right now I'm just tooo sleepy. Need to crash." Sarah pulls the towel off her head, drops it on the floor, and shakes her long hair free. Yawning and blinking, she slips under the covers on the far side of the bed and looks up at Chuck from her pillow.

Unsure of what to do, he takes a step backward to the doorway and leans awkwardly against the door frame. "Rest well, babe. I'll take the couch."

Sarah shakes her head no. "Chuck, it's okay. I slept with you right here when I thought you were my enemy and not my husband. Why wouldn't I share our bed with you now? C'mon. It's been a long day and it's really late and we both need sleep." She pats the empty half of the bed.

"You've got a point." Chuck nods and smiles and climbs in beside her. He turns off the bedside lamp and leans over to kiss her.

"Good night, Sarah."

"Turn over," she says, pushing gently on his shoulder.

Chuck turns on his side, as directed, and Sarah immediately snuggles against him from behind, slipping one of her arms under his neck and wrapping the other around his chest. Her stocking feet tangle up with his bare feet. She kisses the back of his neck.

"G'night, Chuck."

And Sarah's asleep in mere moments. Soothed by the soft rhythm of her breathing, Chuck gently folds his arms around hers, and drifts off….

 

* * *

_Some time later, in her lair a few miles away, the raven-haired woman flexes her fingers and turns back to her iPad.)_

...Still spooning with Chuck and deep in a healing dream, Sarah abruptly twitches and shakes her head.  Startled awake, Chuck mumbles, "Hmm?"

"Sorry," Sarah drowsily whispers. "There's a bug in here...moth, I think. Brushed my ear. Tickles."

The moth reappears, circling above them.

" _Morrrr_ -gan," grumbles Chuck. "Must've come in through the window looking for me before we got back. Probably let in a whole swarm, knowing him. Fear not, m'love, I'll shoo this interloper and any others away."

He switches the lamp on. The moth glides up to the ceiling. Chuck and Sarah turn onto their backs and look up at it.

"Funny that it didn't go to the light," Chuck notices. He rubs his eyes and focuses on the moth… _then flashes_ on it.

"Oh boy—oh boy!" He throws off the covers and stands up on the bed for a closer look, nearly trampling Sarah in the process.

"Chuck, what—?"

"Sarah—this isn't a moth. It's a nano-drone—a Noctuidor nano-drone."

_(The raven-haired woman's eyes widen in surprise.)_

Sarah, instantly fully awake, leaps for the doorway. "Get away from it! Chuck, _now!"_

"Wait." He turns to her and puts his finger to his lips—as if a sudden noise could startle a cyber-insect. It's still there on the ceiling, and Chuck gingerly raises his opened right hand toward it. "Maybe I can trap it," he whispers.

_(The raven-haired woman chuckles at that. Her fingers dance over the iPad.)_

_(Music: "Insects," by Oingo Boingo)_

Chuck lunges and misses as the drone moth dives from the ceiling and starts looping around him. He bounces and flails wildly atop the bed, but doesn't come close to it.

Alarmed and agitated, Sarah yells, "This is crazy—dangerous! _"_ She jumps back up on the bed and starts twisting and weaving around Chuck, trying to grasp hold of his arm without getting swatted herself. "What are you _doing?_ Stop! Get _away_ from that thing!"

"Just a second! Wait! I can do this." Chuck freezes, enabling Sarah to grab a fistful of his T-shirt. She tugs but Chuck holds his ground. He watches the trajectory of the drone moth for two seconds, then takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and flashes again. Then, without opening his eyes, he reaches out with both hands _—where the drone is about to be—_ and—

"I _got_ it! Sarah, I got it!" He can feel it bouncing around inside his cupped hands: much tougher and heavier than an actual moth would be.

_(The raven-haired woman laughs out loud. "Ay! That's a first.")_

"Chuck—there's another one!" cries Sarah. _"Ow!"_ She lets go of his shirt.

He turns to see a second drone moth on Sarah's neck. She swipes at it, throws a confused look at Chuck, and then her expression goes wholly blank. She collapses on the bed.

"Sarah…! _Ow!"_ Chuck feels a sharp sting on his palm and drops the captured nano-drone. "Sorry—didn't expect—moths would...bite..." he mumbles as a cold numbness creeps up his forearm, and everything around him goes out of focus.

 

* * *

**Second day, morning**

The ringing doorbell wakes Chuck. After that, the first thing he's aware of is the warmth of Sarah lying close beside him, then the sunlight pouring into the bedroom through partly-opened curtains. He turns to his wife and rises up on one elbow, just in time to watch her dusky blue eyes open.

"This is real—the beach wasn't a dream," Sarah whispers.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Chuck replies. He runs his fingers through her hair. "You sleep well?"

"Ohhhh yes." Sarah stretches like a contented lioness. "Amazing, actually. I feel like every bone and muscle was taken out, polished, and put back just right."

"Same here. And best of all is waking up next to you."

She softly moans and pulls him down close to her for a fierce soul kiss.

The doorbell rings again.

"We're going to ignore that, right?" Sarah asks Chuck as she extends one long, trim leg and hooks it around his waist, in case she hadn't made her point clearly enough yet.

Now Chuck moans, but in exasperation. "Oh baby, you know I want to—but if that's Morgan he'll be in here through the door or window any moment now. He's probably already seen your car parked out back."

" _Allll_ right, can't fault a girl for trying," pouts Sarah. "I know he's your best bud and that he and I were good friends too—but is his timing always this bad?"

Chuck just rolls his eyes, as the doorbell rings twice in rapid succession, followed by a brisk rapping on the front door.

"Might as well let him in then," Sarah says with resignation. She pops into the closet and emerges almost immediately in running shorts and one of Chuck's _Call of Duty_ T-shirts. She seems to be finding her way around the apartment with little troubl

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, hurriedly combing out her bed hair, she says, "Something familiar about this scenario. Barstow—the motel—right?"

"Right...and _you've_ never let me forget that morning."

Sarah laughs and shoulder-bumps Chuck as they meet in the hallway. Chuck heads for the kitchen to put on some coffee, while Sarah goes to the front door to greet— _not_ Morgan, but rather— 

—a statuesque, raven-haired woman in a crisp charcoal-grey business suit and jet-black wire-frame sunglasses, waiting attentively on the doorstep with a slender metal briefcase at her side. The woman smoothly pulls off the sunglasses with her left hand, and leans forward with a proffered right hand and a friendly expression.

"Good morning, Ms. Carmichael—or perhaps, Mrs. Bartowski...?"

Sarah scrutinizes her for a moment. "I know you—you're Juanita—"

"Juanita Saldana, that's right. I'm so glad you remembered me, Sarah." She shakes Sarah's hand vigorously, as Chuck appears in the doorway.

"And this? This must be the famous Agent Charles Carmichael, no?" Saldana asks.

As she reaches across to shake Chuck's hand, she leans in toward Sarah and softly murmurs, _"Muy guapo!"_

And Chuck _flashes_ on her: _CIA—field agent—engineering—weapons expert!_ He stands there for an instant, half-dazed and smiling—then suddenly remembers that he's still got boxer shorts on, and slips behind Sarah.

"I'm just Chuck now," he says sheepishly. "Please come in. Would you like coffee?"

"Yes, won't you come in, Juanita?" Sarah asks sweetly. "Sorry that we're a little underdressed. We were up awfully late last night."

"Not a problem," Saldana says with a smile that, to Sarah, looks just a bit smug.

Moments later, the two women are sitting at the kitchen table. After a quick detour to the bedroom for a more presentable pair of shorts, Chuck pours everyone a mug of strong coffee, then sits down next to Sarah.

"Don't tell me," he begins. "Old colleagues, right?"

"Sort of," Sarah explains. "Agent Saldana and I trained together at the Academy early on, but rather soon we were placed into very different tracks. Based on our relative levels of tech skills, I recall. She's very much in _your_ league, sweetheart."

"Now you should not sell yourself short, Sarah," counters Saldana. "My recollection is that it had something to do with martial arts. I remember you breaking my arm... _twice!_ " She winks at Chuck. "Both times by accident, of course!"

"Of course," says Sarah, mimicking Saldana's faintly smug smile.

"Of course," echoes Chuck, taking hold of his wife's hand beneath the table.

"So, Juanita, we haven't seen each other for something like—what—about twelve years, is it?" Sarah asks.

"Face to face, about that long, yes," replies Saldana, "…though I have also studied files from some of the missions you two have undertaken over the past five years."

Sarah's expression doesn't change, but under the table, she squeezes Chuck's hand _really_ hard, and he nearly drops the coffee mug from his other hand.

"—But that's not what I am here about," Saldana quickly continues. "I am fully aware that Agents Walker and Bartowski are no longer with the Agency. Instead I have come because the Agency requires the services of Carmichael Industries on a cybersecurity matter. More specifically, for a cyber-incident response."

Now Chuck is squeezing Sarah's hand excitedly. "Wow, really?" he asks.

"Really," says Saldana. She puts aside her coffee, opens her briefcase, takes out an iPad, and places it on the table. She taps the screen and brings up a grainy image of a large room filled with computer terminals. Chuck and Sarah lean in for a better look.

"Of course, I am not able to share too much detail in an unsecured location like your apartment, but our problem is with a secure cyberwarfare data-processing center that has been disabled—completely locked up, I should say—by a rather insidious virus or worm dispatched by an _as-yet_ unknown saboteur from an _as-yet_ undetermined location."

Saldana looks up from the iPad and directly at Chuck. "We need someone who can counter the malware and fully restore the facility—"

Turning to Sarah, she continues, "— _And_ we need someone to forensically analyze all the human intel that we have collected, to help us determine who sent this malware in the first place. Chuck and Sarah, we think this is a perfect match to your respective skill sets. We are prepared to offer you whatever resources you need—and whatever _fees_ you consider reasonable—to get the job done. And bring the rest of your team if you so choose."

Chuck takes a deep breath and looks to Sarah. She subtly shifts her gaze away from the table and back, a gesture that Chuck takes to mean _Let's talk about this offline._

"Agent Saldana—" he begins.

"Juanita. Please."

"Juanita, this would be an exciting opportunity for us. But given that there are plenty of more-established cybersecurity firms out there, I've gotta wonder what brought you _here_."

Saldana smiles and pats his arm. "Ah yes, very astute. Again, I think that you and Sarah sell yourselves terribly short. But...I also don't think I am compromising anything if I tell you that your former boss General Diane Beckman had some influence. Thanks largely to her you both still retain your security clearances."

"Aha!" replies Chuck. "Can you tell us where this facility is located?"

"No, not unless and until you accept the assignment. Somewhere in the continental United States—that I can say."

"Is this on a short fuse? Can we have a little time to consider the offer?"

"A day or so…would not be a problem." Saldana, at a speed that impresses even Chuck, taps and sweeps out a series of commands on her iPad, then shuts it down and slips it back into her briefcase.

"All right," she says. "I've just sent my 24/7 contact number to your secure line, and linked you to the standard online forms for consulting contracts. As you can tell, I am anticipating that you will say yes.Feel free to run any of this by your legal counsel first if you wish. I believe that you do have a law firm on retainer?"

"Yes we do," replies Sarah.

"I think everything is covered then. Thank you very much for the delicious coffee." Saldana rises and shakes Chuck's and Sarah's hands once more. _"Adiós_ , and I hope I will be seeing you again very soon. Please do not get up; you look so comfortable. I will let myself out."

Saldana pauses at the front door. "One more thing?"

"What is it?" Sarah asks.

"May I just say that as an old friend, Sarah, I am very glad to have found you both here together. Because I don't know if you know, but there are folks at Langley who have been secretly rooting for you two for some time now. Sometimes not so secretly."

As Saldana leaves, Chuck and Sarah catch sight of two more agents in dark suits waiting out in the courtyard.

"You don't trust her, do you?" Chuck asks quietly, while peeking at his watch.

"No," replies Sarah. "The offer intrigues me anyway. What do you think?"

"Sure I'm interested. But I've already made a promise to you, baby, about down time, and home, and healing."

Sarah takes her husband's face in her hands. "And I appreciate that, more than I can say. But Chuck, whatever else is foggy, I know for certain that you and I didn't fall in love sequestered in a bunker. We fell in love on the job, doing the things that we're good at."

"Like thwarting cyberterrorists?" Chuck asks.

"Exactly!" Sarah says, and kisses him enthusiastically. While trying to reciprocate with comparable passion, Chuck slowly opens one eye and gingerly lifts his watch into his field of view behind Sarah's head.

"Why ( _kiss_ )…do you keep looking ( _kiss_ )…at your watch?" Sarah asks him, sounding more curious than irritated.

"Because I figured ( _kiss_ )…we'd only get ( _kiss_ )…about thirty seconds alone before—"

 _Bang!_ The front door flies open! Sarah reflexively jumps to her feet and pivots to put herself between the oncoming intruder and Chuck, while Chuck grins, knowing it's only—

— _Morgan,_ bounding across the room toward them in a near-frenzy.

"Chuck—and _Sarah!_ Sarah, oh thank God you're here, I'm so relieved—" He seizes them both at once in an overly dramatic hug, then nudges Chuck with his elbow. "It worked, didn't it, pal?"

Alex appears with a big, colorfully labeled box of _Subway®_ breakfast sandwiches. "Hi everyone!"

"And you're…Alex?" Sarah asks, tentatively. "You're Casey's daughter...right?"

"That's right, Sarah," Alex replies, and hugs her. "And I'm very happy to see you here."

But Sarah notices that Morgan is looking surprised and deflated that she didn't instantly know his girlfriend—and she recalls his theory about Chuck's kiss. So she takes her husband's left hand in hers and holds it so that their wedding rings are visible.

"Morgan, look," she says. "I remember I love him. I'm here...I'm _home_." She embraces Chuck, while Morgan and Alex look as if they are going to melt all over each other.

Blushing intensely, Chuck says, "Hey, I'm glad you guys brought some munchies! We have something really, really big to discuss."

"Yeah," replies Morgan. "We saw your visitors."

 

* * *

**Forty-eight minutes later**

"Hello, Juanita—I mean Agent Saldana? Chuck—uh— _Charles Carmichael_ here. We've checked our schedule and our team has decided to accept the offer…Yes, and thanks for those kind words. We will require an advance, of course…Oh yes, yes—one hundred thousand will suffice. And where do we meet you? Uh huh. Wow! _Really!_ Yes, you can transmit the coordinates of the meeting site directly to our secure line. Thank you, and we will see you tomorrow. 'Bye now!"

Chuck puts down his phone and flashes two thumbs up. "Team Carmichael," he announces, " _we_ are going to _Vegas!_

 

* * *

**Immediately afterward, across town**

In the front passenger seat of a government SUV, enroute to the airport, CIA Special Agent Juanita Saldana makes another call.

"Hello, Professor…I have your man, and he and his associates will be arriving tomorrow evening. So you may go down in the basement and turn on all the lights. Please, just be careful of what may be lying around down there. I have confirmed that our Mr. Carmichael is once more…um, _enhanced_ …if you know what I mean…I agree, but we will deal with that….Yes, and good evening to you too, Professor."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck. I just changed the channel.

**Third day, early morning, the apartment complex in Echo Park**

With Mary Bartowski at the wheel, the Woodcomb family minivan pulls into its designated parking space alongside the building. Ellie Woodcomb emerges from the front passenger side, just a bit stiffly, and stretches.

"Ugh, red-eye flights," she groans. "Mom, thanks again for picking us up at the airport."

"Happy to help, dear," replies Mary with a smile.

"Yeah, thanks," her husband Devon adds. He's farther back inside the vehicle, fiddling with the multiple straps and pads of their well-armored child car seat, freeing their little daughter Clara as carefully and gently as he can. "At least we've got a place in Chicago all set. If the movers can come and pick up everything today, we'll be in awesome shape!"

"And _then_ ," Ellie replies, with a tinge of sarcasm, "we get to _drive_ all the way back there!" She turns, taking in the suburban surroundings they soon would trade for the urban Midwest. "Less awesome. I'm not looking forward to that—" Suddenly, her jaw drops.

"Ohh! Devon, Mom— _look!"_ Ellie shrieks, and sprints toward the courtyard entrance.

"Huh?" asks Devon, backing out of the minivan with Clara in his arms.

Mary points to Sarah's Lotus, parked next to Chuck's Nerd Herder. She and Devon gawk in astonishment at each other for a moment, then chase after Ellie, who is already knocking excitedly at Chuck and Sarah's front door. "Chuck? It's me! Chuck?... _Sarah?"_

"I don't think anyone's home, babe," Devon observes. "Morgan's not answering his doorbell either. Maybe you should call Chuck. We haven't checked on him in almost two days."

"No." Ellie takes a deep breath to calm herself down. "No, he made me promise I wouldn't be the overprotective big sister any more. If Chuck has news for us he'll tell us when he's ready. I don't want to get my hopes up too high—not yet anyway."

Still...she can't help but give Devon, Clara, and Mary a hug.

 

 

* * *

**Later, high above the Mojave Desert**

During the fifty-five-minute private jet flight from Burbank to Las Vegas, Chuck copies photos and videos of family and friends from his iPhone to Sarah's, as she looks on avidly. He copies them one by one, because each picture of course comes with its own story. For Sarah and Chuck, seated together at the rear of the cabin, it's something like their beach encounter all over again, with laughter and nudges and misty eyes punctuated by happy kisses. Only once do Sarah's emotions visibly flicker toward deadly anger—right after she tearfully watches a video of herself playing with her little stepsister Molly.

"That bastard would have taken her from me too," she says—quietly, but with eyes afire.

Chuck takes her hand. "You know we can go see Molly and your mom any time you like."

"I know." Sarah sighs and lays her head on his shoulder. "This is all wonderful but it's also kind of hard for me. I feel that I should remember everything that you're showing me and I just can't, other than fragments here and there."

Chuck toggles his phone off. "Maybe this is too much, too soon? I'm sorry if—"

"Oh no, no—Chuck, I'm truly happy that you're doing this. I'm just frustrated with myself."

Chuck puts his arm around Sarah. "Baby, baby, this is not your fault and it'll be all right. We know it'll take time. But you and I will fix this and go on with the life we're meant to have."

"Every time you say things like that I feel a little bit better," says Sarah, leaning in closer to him. "I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't come for me on the beach."

"Well I did, because somehow you let me know you'd be waiting for me there. I figure there must be some bonds that are just too strong even for the most evil nemesis to break."

"Here's to that." With her forefinger, Sarah gently traces the image of giggling Molly on the screen of her iPhone. "Show me more pictures, Chuck."

"You've got it, my love," he tells her, first reaching back to scratch a pesky itchy spot just above his left shoulder blade.

 

 

* * *

**Meanwhile**

Seated at the opposite end of the cabin, discreetly separate from their friends, Morgan and Alex are experiencing all the adventure of their first flight together.

"You're _still_ doing it!" Alex exclaims at her bearded boyfriend, who has been sitting tense and ramrod-straight in his seat since the jet left the ground.

"I've _gotta_ do it for the whole flight," Morgan insists. "If I don't root for the plane to stay in the air—it won't!"

Alex throws her hands up. "How can a tech-savvy hard-nosed CIA-trained spy have so many superstitions?" Then, mischievously: "What if you were distracted? For example, I...could...do... _this!"_ She pokes and prods Morgan in a ticklish spot, making him immediately double over in his seat.

"Hey! Don't do that! Alex!"

 _"Aaaand_ nothing happens to the plane, did ya notice? Perhaps you weren't distracted quite enough?"

Alex grabs Morgan's head in both hands and smacks her lips against his.

The jet immediately drops into a steep descent.

"See? _See?"_ yells Morgan as he pulls away from the kiss. But Alex laughs and points to the window: they're making their final approach into Las Vegas.

_(Music: "Vegas," by Sara Bareilles)_

The charter jet descends eastward over the still-snowy Spring Mountains, then banks to the south, following a course down the center of the wide Las Vegas basin: packed end to end with towering casino-hotels, baize-green golf courses, and residential sprawl; laced together by throbbing freeways and boulevards. Dominating the near horizon to the east, Lake Mead winds backward behind Hoover Dam through an endless expanse of sawtooth mountains and canyons, a deep blue juxtaposed against the sunburnt red and brown rocks of the desert.

The wheels drop, and the jet touches down at McCarran International Airport. The early-spring midday sun is comfortably warm, and cheers the Carmichael Industries team as they disembark at the corporate terminal. The ground crew transfers their baggage into a pale-grey Ford Expedition. Then Chuck climbs in behind the wheel, Sarah sits shotgun, and Morgan and Alex pile into the back. The SUV rolls out of the airport onto Tropicana Avenue and then to the Strip, heading north to where the casinos are grandest and most numerous.

"Where are we staying?" Morgan asks excitedly, over and over again, as he gawks out the window at New York, New York...the MGM Grand...the Monte Carlo...the Bellagio...Paris Las Vegas...the Mirage. Finally, Chuck turns off the Strip into a wide, palm-lined drive leading to a shining silver monolith of a hotel, sixty stories tall.

"The La Plata Linda," says Sarah. "I'm impressed. Sure it's in our budget?"

"Well, we did get the government rate," Chuck replies.

Morgan is practically bouncing in the back seat. "Wow—this is the place that does the hourly fireworks shows at night, isn't it?"

All is vibrantly active around the hotel, even on a midweek afternoon. Chuck maneuvers the Expedition around idling limousines and taxis to the front entrance: all in glass, stainless steel, and chandeliers. He hands the keys to a valet in a silvery tuxedo that resembles a spacesuit. Before Chuck can exit the vehicle, Sarah turns to him and grasps his hand.

"I think this is exactly what I need right now. Thank you, love."

Chuck smiles and shrugs. "No need to thank me, baby—this is what we do."

As he steps down from the driver's seat, Sarah notices that he pauses for just a second to scratch his left shoulder against the headrest.

 

 

* * *

**Momentarily**

After checking his team into the hotel, Chuck hands Morgan and Alex the card key for their suite. The bags, including several hard-bodied cases of computer equipment and tools, are stacked neatly on luggage trolleys. In a subdued voice, Chuck goes over the schedule once more.

"So first, we sweep our rooms for bugs. Then we should all make sure to get a little rest in case this ends up being a long night. Meet for dinner downstairs at eighteen-thirty hours. Saldana wants Sarah and me ready for pickup ninety minutes after that, and you two have to be ready to roll out at that time also. Got it?"

Alex nods but Morgan is looking eagerly in the other direction, toward the noisy casino. Chuck grabs his shoulder and turns him around. "Work now, play later, buddy."

The two couples separate. Morgan and Alex head for the fifty-sixth floor. Chuck and Sarah's room keys allow them access to a private, glass-walled elevator to the fifty-ninth floor and their suite. They stand close together in the ascending cab, enjoying the dramatic view of the Strip. Chuck circles his arms around Sarah's waist from behind. She exhales slowly and relaxes against him.

"You know," he tells her, "once I came pretty close to being killed in one of these things while fleeing from some very sexy assassins—of course you and Casey saved me."

"From what? Are you sure they were trying to _kill_ you?" Sarah asks, slyly reaching one hand back to grab Chuck's butt.

The elevator doors open at the fifty-ninth floor. A portly, silver-haired, avuncular concierge greets them in the elegant foyer. The bellman has already brought the luggage into their suite and is waiting by the door. Chuck tips him generously and sends him on his way.

Sarah strolls around the suite, taking stock of the amenities with a discerning eye: 180-degree panorama of the city, king-sized bed with a dozen pillows, hot tub in the bathroom, full kitchen and wet bar, four flat-screen televisions, bouquets of white roses and lilies all over...

"Chuck, this is the _honeymoon_ suite, isn't it?"

He grins sheepishly. "Yeah—umm—it was available. Too much, too soon?"

"No, actually it's perfect for our cover," Sarah replies, utterly deadpan.

"Our... _what?"_ Chuck looks confused and a tad crestfallen, until Sarah finally cracks a smile and shoulder-bumps him.

"Kidding! C'mon—I'm pretty sure I remember that being some kind of an in-joke between the two of us. Am I wrong?" Then Sarah's face immediately turns serious, and she puts a finger to her lips.

"No, no, you're right. Hah, you got me, babe!" Chuck nods and quietly unlatches one of the equipment cases. He takes out two hand-held surveillance detectors and passes one to his wife. Quickly, efficiently, Sarah and Chuck scan the entire suite and find no hidden transmitters or cameras.

"Clear," Chuck calls out.

"Clear," Sarah concurs. She sits down on the bed and takes off her shoes. "Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect. This isn't a spy mission, but on the other hand this is still the CIA we're working with."

"If they want to, they'll try to put eyes and ears on us from nearby hotels, or maybe even use a drone," observes Chuck.

"And if so, aren't we rather exposed up here at the top of the hotel?"

In response, Chuck pulls up a YouTube video on his iPhone: taken during someone's Vegas vacation, a shaky, sometimes out-of-focus scene of the magnificent La Plata Linda Hotel tower at night, with sprays of silver and gold fireworks erupting in a great circle all around the top floors—like a crown—accompanied by oohs and aahs from the unknown cell-phone cameraman.

"Eight-minute shows on the hour every hour from nine p.m. to two a.m., seven days a week," notes Chuck. "So all the rooms on the upper floors of this hotel are outfitted with tinted safety glass and extra soundproofing. More or less impervious to all external mikes and cameras."

"And _that's_ the real reason you picked this suite," says Sarah, shooting her alpha-nerd husband a warmly admiring look. "I should have realized you'd do your homework."

"Yeah...well, there's still some risk of multispectral surveillance by a drone, but I've got a few countermeasures in mind." Chuck spots a comfortable-looking recliner on the far side of the bedroom and tries it out.

 _"Sa-weeet!"_ He rocks back and forth in the big chair. "Oh...and Sarah? That whole thing about our cover? Remembering that is really important, I think..."

Sarah is listening to him, _but something moving on the wall draws her attention…._

"...you and I wasted a lot of time convincing ourselves that our relationship was just a cover, even long after it clearly—"

"Chuck! _Duck!"_ In an instantaneous blur of long limbs and flowing hair, Sarah reaches beneath her dress, takes out a throwing knife and hurls it—the knife flashes _(whoosh!)_ less than an inch above Chuck's head and _(whunk!)_ impales something tiny on the wall behind him!

The blood drains from Chuck's face. _"Whoa!_ Babe!" he exclaims, lifting shakily out of the chair to see what Sarah had just nailed. "Honey, you got yourself a moth! Amazing shot, but when did you decide to start a bug collection?"

Sarah is immediately at his side, and she seems just as stunned by what just happened. "Chuck! I'm so sorry to scare you like that—I don't know why I did that—something just came over me."

"It's okay—it's okay. Good to know I've still got my warrior protector with me."

She chuckles, and they hold each other for a moment. Then Chuck pulls the knife out of the wall, wipes it on his sleeve, and hands it back to Sarah.

"Maybe you should relax a little while," he suggests. "Grab a snack or a drink? It's all there and paid for. I'm going to do the same, but first I want to sneak a five-minute peek past the firewall into the hotel operations intranet. It might be helpful to us later on to know a little more about how this building functions..."

 

 

* * *

**Twenty minutes later**

Chuck has little trouble hacking into the hotel's building-maintenance systems, but once in, he finds enough potentially useful information that a five-minute peek extends to ten minutes, then twenty.

From time to time he glances over at Sarah, who has fallen asleep atop the honeymoon bed, lying curled among her scattered inventory of knives and other small weapons all cleverly disguised as computer-repair tools.

Dreaming, Sarah turns onto her back. Her breaths come faster and she begins to murmur in her sleep.

_"Don't…don't freak out…we're ready…."_

Hearing this, Chuck jumps up from his laptop. He sits on the edge of the bed and studies his wife's peaceful visage, marveling at how much has changed in just three days.

"You saved me," she says, drowsily but matter-of-factly. Then she awakens. "Hey you."

"That goes both ways, you know," Chuck answers.

"Hmm?" Sarah pushes her weapons to the far edge of the bed and holds out her arms. "We're supposed to be resting up—isn't that what you said? So cuddle for a little while…."

 

 

* * *

**That evening**

_(Music: "Aragón, Fantasia from Suite Española," by Isaac Albeniz)_

Chuck and his team, sharp in their business attire, sit around an elaborate table in the grandiose La Plata Linda dining room, near a stage where a classical-guitar quartet plays. They are just close enough to the music to make eavesdropping difficult but far enough for them to hear each other. The cuisine is excellent, but nobody eats much because everybody is too amped up—though it would be hard to know this simply by looking at them, as they all banter and laugh and poke at each other like any normal group of corporate travelers.

After coffee, they roll.

Morgan and Alex quickly leave the building through the lobby, to retrieve the grey Expedition from valet parking. Sarah and Chuck take the briefcases they had concealed under their table and walk casually over to the private elevator.

At seven fifty-five precisely, the elevator doors open, and there is Agent Saldana with her iPad.

"Good evening, Chuck and Sarah. You look to be ready."

"Couldn't be more ready," Chuck replies.

"Then we'll be off."

The elevator brings them to the roof of the La Plata Linda, where a blue-and-white helicopter labeled U.S. BUREAU OF RECLAMATION idles, waiting for them. Saldana climbs in front next to the pilot. Chuck helps Sarah up into a rear seat, passes her the two briefcases, then climbs in beside her and slams the door shut.

Immediately, the pilot engages the rotors. Saldana signals Chuck and Sarah to put on headsets. The helicopter lifts up and out over the dazzling nighttime lights of the Strip sixty stories below.

_(Music: "Chuck Fills in the Blanks," by Tim Jones)_

Down there, in the Expedition, Alex is watching tracking signals from Chuck's and Sarah's iPhones on a dashboard-mounted monitor. When she notices that they are on the move, she nudges Morgan and points to the screen.

"Southeast," she tells him. Morgan guns the engine and they head out into the Sin City traffic, following Chuck and Sarah's course using a navigation program custom-designed by Chuck himself.

"Can we really keep up with a helicopter?" Alex asks.

"Depends on how far they go," replies Morgan. "Chuck said that as long as we don't fall more than fifty miles behind, we'll be fine."

"Let's hope. Fifty miles in any direction from here is open desert..."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck and, absent a timely grant from Volkoff, couldn't afford to buy it either.

**Third day, late in the evening, in the air over southern Nevada**

Chuck and Sarah sit closely together in the darkened back seats of the government helicopter as it carries them over the suburbs of Las Vegas. They keep a careful watch through the open windows, attentive to any landmarks that can help them determine where they are headed. But after just a few minutes their destination is apparent, looming magnificently beneath them in the glow of dozens of floodlights.

_"Hoover Dam—huh!"_ says Chuck jauntily over his headset mike. _"I didn't think we were coming to repair turbines!"_

_"No worries,"_ Saldana replies with a laugh. _"That part of the dam is still working just fine."_

The pilot brings the helicopter over the top of the rugged rim of the Colorado River canyon downstream, then skillfully pivots into an escalator-like descent that carries them just below the high concrete arch of the O'Callaghan-Tillman Bridge, and down to a gentle landing atop the powerhouse at the base of the monumental dam. Sarah, no mean pilot herself, gives him an appreciative thumbs-up. The pilot nods in acknowledgment.

Even before the rotors completely stop, Saldana is out of the helicopter. She walks around the front to the passenger door on Sarah's side, carrying a black metal lockbox. By the time Sarah and Chuck have alighted and joined her with their briefcases in hand, the pilot has killed the engine, and the only sound is a soft but steady hum from the powerhouse below.

"Just so we are clear," Saldana says, pointing to the briefcases, "you may bring in whatever non-lethal devices you need to complete your tasks, but everything you take out of the facility—hardware or software—will be thoroughly inspected. And you both must be willing to submit to search if needed."

"Sure, that's standard procedure," replies Chuck. "Are you saying that you want to check inside our briefcases?"

"I already have," Saldana says, with another of her almost-smug grins. Then she opens the lockbox and holds in out. "And, Sarah—I need you to leave your gun here. Of course you may retrieve it when you depart the premises."

_"What?"_ asks Sarah. Chuck can't tell if she is truly astonished or just faking it perfectly.

"Sarah. Please. This is Reclamation policy, not ours. The agency that operates this dam."

"We're not _working_ for Reclamation," retorts Sarah.

"Play whatever games you wish," Saldana says with a shrug. "Either _you_ turn over your firearm, or _we_ turn around and go back. And if it makes any difference—I myself am not armed."

Chuck steps in between them. "Excuse us a moment, please, Agent Saldana?" He takes hold of his wife's elbow and walks her a few steps backward, out of earshot.

"Hey," he tells her, "if you're not good with this, we can bail out."

"I don't like it," Sarah replies, frowning. _"She's_ the one playing games. But this is too important to our future."

"We'll keep each other safe," says Chuck. "And we can play mind games too."

Sarah smiles and takes his arm. The two of them stroll back, exchanging conspiratorial glances. Chuck nods, and Sarah winks at Saldana, before calmly removing her pistol from beneath her jacket and setting it carefully in the lockbox. Now Saldana looks confused and uncomfortable as she closes the lid and places the box inside the helicopter.

"Uhh...thank you for your, um, cooperation." She takes three white hard hats out of the helicopter, dons one, and hands the other two to Sarah and Chuck. They follow her down a stairway from the roof. Saldana waves a Reclamation ID to get them past an armed guard and into the pulsing powerhouse.

"This way, please." They walk along a corridor past imposing, seemingly endless banks of dials and switchboxes. The building smells of ozone and lubricating oil. Chuck looks around at all the equipment with great interest. Sarah walks beside him, making detailed mental notes of their path and all the potential exits along it.

"The only time we are able to access the facility," continues Saldana, "is between dusk and dawn, when the dam is closed to tourists. The pilot can fly you back to Las Vegas as needed, but only at night. If you are still in the facility at dawn you must stay until after sundown. Is this clear?"

"Yes—clear," Chuck answers.

_"This just gets better and better,"_ Sarah whispers into his ear.

"But don't worry," Saldana says. "The facility is well-provisioned, and there are even bunks for sleeping. Though I have never tried them out for comfort, myself."

Halfway down the corridor, Saldana turns to the left and leads Chuck and Sarah single-file through a narrow gap in the row of high-voltage apparatus, to the back wall of the building, behind which is the dam itself. There is a solitary closet door in the wall, marked STORAGE. The knob on the door is made of a transparent material and resembles an antique glass doorknob, except for its simpler rounded shape. Saldana grasps it firmly and holds on.

"Biometric security measures," she explains.

A few seconds later, the storage closet opens to reveal a concealed elevator, which carries Saldana, Sarah, and Chuck down, for more than a minute, to a room with riveted steel walls and a large, oval-shaped, watertight door—like a bulkhead in a submarine.

Saldana takes out her iPad and enters a command. The heavy door swings open with a soft hiss, and a gust of warm, musty air hits them. Then Saldana leads Chuck and Sarah forward into a tubular passageway as wide as a two-lane road, with rusted metal walls and an elevated catwalk down the middle. The only light comes from dingy industrial fixtures hanging high above them. About fifty feet ahead of them is another bulkhead and another watertight door. The sound of their footsteps on the catwalk reverberates in the empty tunnel, and when they are halfway to the second door, the one behind them slams shut.

At the second bulkhead, Saldana again taps her iPad to open the door—revealing another fifty feet of tunnel, catwalk, and—

"Would you believe... _another_ door?" asks Chuck.

Saldana looks back over her shoulder. "And two more after it. All for safety, more than security. We are inside an abandoned water diversion tunnel about six hundred and forty feet below the surface of Lake Mead. We would prefer to keep the lake where it is."

Beyond the fifth and final watertight door, everything is different. Saldana, Sarah, and Chuck emerge into a well-lit, air-conditioned room that resembles the vestibule of a conventional office building, except for the absence of windows. Framed photographs of Hoover Dam hang on earthtone walls. Stylish chairs and a couch occupy the front half of the room. At the other end sits a security guard, at a desk alongside a large, beige door.

This time Saldana shows her CIA badge, and the guard nods. Then she looks to Chuck and Sarah, and in a friendly voice asks, "IDs, please?"

Sarah reaches for her own badge, and is nonplussed when she abruptly remembers she no longer has one. Chuck gently puts a reassuring hand on her arm and produces his drivers license. Sarah quickly does the same. The guard enters their data into a terminal on her desk.

After a moment, she looks up, says "Thank you," and hands them both yellow visitor's badges to pin on.

Then she presses a button on her desk, and the beige door slowly slides open.

"Here we are at last!" says Saldana enthusiastically, beckoning to Chuck and Sarah to follow her inside. "Welcome to... _Deep Skillet."_

As the three of them walk through the wide doorway and into the facility, Sarah deftly places herself between Chuck and Saldana, just in case he flashes on anything he sees.

He _doesn't_ flash—but his jaw drops almost to his chest. Spread out before them is a cavernous room with drop ceilings and subdued lighting, dense with late-model computer workstations and terminals. Clusters of high-definition flatscreens hang from the ceiling in several places. A line of electronics workbenches, each fully stocked with tools and components, extends along an entire wall. The air inside is cool, but dry, with none of the musty odor of the tunnel. Sarah and Chuck hear classical music playing faintly in the background. Four young, white-suited technicians are in constant motion around the room: tapping on keyboards, checking cables underneath benches, looking up at the flatscreens, taking notes on tablet computers, and occasionally conversing quietly with each other.

Though Deep Skillet is impressive, something is clearly wrong. Nobody is working at any of the terminals. All of the screens are winking off and on, going in and out of focus, displaying only bizarrely colored patterns and strings of random characters. The white-suited technicians appear to be calm but very, very confused.

Chuck looks at Sarah and lets out a long breath. "Baby, we've got our work cut out for us."

Saldana ushers them to an elegant conference table in the center of the room. "Please be seated. And feel free to remove your hard hats."

Two of the technicians bring them water, coffee, and a plate of fruit and pastries. Chuck eagerly grabs a donut while Sarah takes a small bunch of grapes. Saldana again taps on her iPad, and one of the flatscreens above them pivots down for better visibility.

An old black-and-white photo of Hoover Dam under construction appears on the screen.

"As you may know," Saldana begins, "the dam was built between 1931 and 1936. During that time the Colorado River was diverted around the dam site through tunnels that were excavated through the canyon walls. Four tunnels were dug, but only two ever carried any water."

The image changes to another old photo: the completed dam, with a massive crowd milling about on top, in front of a large bunting-draped platform bearing the Presidential seal.

"FDR dedicated the dam, I believe," says Sarah.

"Correct," replies Saldana. "When Hoover Dam was completed, two of the diversion tunnels were retained for emergency spillways, and the other two were taken out of service and sealed at each end." She gestures at the room around them. "We are sitting in one of those two sealed tunnels."

The flatscreen now shows a very grainy shot of a tunnel crammed with tanks and piping.

"The Manhattan Project first made use of this tunnel in the early 1940s, carving out this room deep inside for a secret research laboratory. They took advantage of the plentiful electrical power generated by the dam."

The next image is of an array of 1970s-era data processing equipment, with its enormous reels of magnetic tape.

"For the next three decades the facility was disused, until DARPA rediscovered it in the late Seventies and christened it Deep Skillet. It served various purposes and was periodically upgraded. In mid-2009 it was transferred to the CIA, and we've been using it for research on defenses against cyberattacks. Which brings us to the present—rather ironic—situation."

Chuck, with the last bite of his donut still in his mouth, laughs. "Yeah. So when exactly was the attack?"

Saldana glances at her iPad. "20 May 2011. A Friday. 1620 hours local time."

"Hell of a way to start off the weekend," says Chuck.

"And which would suggest," Sarah adds, "that you brought in other experts to try and fix things before you turned to us. Right?"

"One or two," admits Saldana, "though the main reason for the almost ten-month delay is that the Agency had all but decided to gut Deep Skillet after all the systems went down. But a quite influential scientist managed to convince my superiors that the facility could be worth saving. He comes here on a regular basis, so you will probably meet him at some point."

"That'll be fine," says Chuck. "I assume you have full system schematics and activity logs on a clean computer somewhere? First thing I need to do is learn my way around here."

"Of course," Saldana replies. "And to facilitate Sarah's forensic sleuthing, we've also set up an uninfected terminal with a secure link into the appropriate CIA, NSA, and CYBERCOM databases." She nods toward a technician standing partway across the room, at a terminal that is displaying a blue screen with the Agency logo rather than multicolored gibberish.

"Is there anything else we can get for you?"

Chuck abruptly stands up, shucks off his jacket, and drapes it carefully over the back of his chair. Dumbfounded, Saldana watches him remove his tie and dress shirt to reveal a black T-shirt with the words _I'm here because you broke something_ in large white letters. Then he cracks his neck, left and right, and lifts his briefcase up onto the fancy conference table.

"Just stand back," says Sarah with a wry smile, as she gets up and heads over to her workstation.

"Actually, there _is_ something else," Chuck adds. "Can we change the music in here?"

* * *

**Far above, at the main entrance to Hoover Dam**

The young Bureau of Reclamation police officer is sympathetic, but firm.

"I'm _very_ sorry, folks," he tells the young couple in the grey Expedition idling at the main gate. "Hoover Dam is closed to visitors at night. You can come back at six-thirty tomorrow morning."

"Awww nuts," says Morgan, at the wheel, looking very downcast. "But—but my sweetheart here, and me, we came all the way here from L.A. Tonight! Just so the two of us could stroll across that dam, hand in hand, under the stars. And I _really_ hate to disappoint my sweetheart." He reaches across the front seat and pats her knee.

"It's _sooo_ pretty, even from here," coos Alex, peering down into the canyon at the floodlit dam through a pair of binoculars. She turns to the officer and pouts. "Are you _sure_ there's no way we can get even just a little closer? What if we went around to the other side?"

"There's no longer any access from the Arizona side, ma'am," he replies. "Not since the bypass bridge was opened. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to ask you to turn around now."

"Well, you have a good night, anyway," says Morgan. As he turns the Expedition around and heads back to the main highway, Alex nods her head.

"Saw it," she tells him. "The helicopter is down there at the bottom of the dam."

"Chuck and Sarah must be inside somewhere," Morgan says. "All that concrete and rock...that explains why we lost their signal. Didn't expect they'd take 'em in _there."_

"Well, in hindsight, it's got to be one of the most secure places around here," observes Alex. "What do we do now?"

"Find the closest spot we can park without attracting notice, and wait. I'm sure everything's okay. But Chuck told me—if there's no contact from them after eight hours, then we call _these_ people for help."

Morgan takes a business card from his shirt pocket and shows it to Alex. She reads it, and mouths a silent _wow._

* * *

**Later, in Deep Skillet**

_(Music: "Modern Man," by Arcade Fire)_

Seated at her workstation, Sarah is immersed in operational records and personnel files, poring through details on anyone with even a remote connection to Deep Skillet operations or security. She takes copious notes on a tablet computer by her side. From time to time she sighs, whenever she comes across potentially useful text or images that have been redacted by the Agency.

And every so often, she glances over in amusement and affection for her husband: in his geeky black T-shirt and completely in his element, unselfconsciously bouncing and juking in a squeaking office chair to the cranked-up beat of his favorite satellite music channel, typing out code lightning-fast on a semicircle of different keyboards, searching for the tiniest response to his repeated digital hellos from a bank of confounded monitor screens, and occasionally looking down at a laptop—literally in his lap—the one that holds the detailed schematics for the entire failed cyber system.

"All he's missing is the chardonnay," Sarah says to herself—and wonders where _that_ came from. Then she notices that her own shoeless feet are also tapping softly to the music.

"All _right then!"_ says Chuck loudly and with finality. He pushes himself away from the monitors and comes over to join Sarah.

"Hey, babe. You okay with this music?" He bends down to nuzzle her ear. Sarah laughs and squirms a little because it tickles.

"Ha! Watch it there, you! Sure—I like it, though I have to admit I haven't paid much attention to what's been playing." She taps her monitor screen. "It's a little on the loud side, don't you think?"

_"Pretty good countermeasure against bugs, huh?"_ Chuck whispers in her ear.

_"I know,"_ Sarah whispers in return. _"But watch it—maybe the robot can read lips."_ She nods toward Saldana, who is conferring with a couple of technicians over on the far side of the room, with her iPad out as always.

_"Right."_ Chuck looks at the files displayed on Sarah's screen. "Gotten any good leads?"

"Nothing yet," she replies. "But on the other hand, it's been kind of a refresher for me on plenty of intel that I'd forgotten. Like that we took out bin Laden, for example...and there's a new CIA Director since last fall. And several of the files make reference to somebody named Kardashian—haven't quite figured who that is yet."

"Oh, she's a baddie all right," Chuck avers. "By the way, baby, while I'm here, would ya do me a little favor?" He twists to his left and points toward his left shoulder blade. "Give me a quick scratch right _here?_ I can't reach it and this itch has been plaguing me since we left home. I think something must’ve bitten me."

"So _that's_ how come you've been hopping around on the chair over there," jokes Sarah as she pulls on Chuck's collar and peers down his back. "Yeah, you've got a little welt there...but don't you know you're not supposed to scratch it and make it worse?"

"Easy for _you_ to say," he groans.

"You just need to focus on something else. Here's something else." Sarah pops up from her seat, grabs her husband's head in both hands, and kisses him with plenty of heat. When she releases him, Chuck is wobbly, but happy.

"Does that mean that you solved the problem?" Saldana calls out.

"Well," says Chuck, "I think I _might_ just have an idea of what's going on. Shall we try a little test of my hypothesis?"

He goes over to the workbenches along the wall and pulls a laptop PC from a rack. While walking back to the main battery of computers, he flips the laptop open and boots it. Sarah and Saldana join him as he places the laptop down next to one of the infected terminals with its endlessly kaleidoscopic, meaningless screen display. Chuck fishes behind the device for a cable and connects it to the laptop.

_"Excuse me!"_ he calls out to the technicians. "Would you turn the music down just for a moment...That's great, thanks!" Then Chuck starts the satellite radio player on the laptop, and suddenly the same song that had been pumping out of overhead speakers is now playing much more softly from the speakers in front of them.

Chuck pulls up a seat in front of the laptop. Saldana takes another alongside him while Sarah leans against the back of his chair and looks on.

"Okay," he says. "I'm going to use this as if it's just another network terminal, and try hacking into the main system. I don't have the username or password, but as a rule, I'm able to get in to most secure systems in about a minute or so." He flexes his fingers.

"Ah yes," says Saldana dryly. "The fabled 'Piranha.' I remember that from your file."

"But the thing is—if I'm right—I won't even get that much time. Watch closely."

Sarah puts her hands on Chuck's shoulders as he starts typing. A few lines of code show on the laptop screen—then there is a clearly audible _boing!_ —and the screen begins to display the same random characters and patterns as all the other computers.

"So you've infected this computer with the same malware," observes Saldana.

"Yes—but _listen!"_ The laptop is still playing the song. Chuck fiddles with the volume keys, but the sound does not change. He holds down the on-off button, which would normally shut off the device after a few seconds, but nothing happens. The music keeps on playing, and the display keeps throwing out incoherent symbols and psychedelic colors.

Chuck sits back and folds his arms.

_"¡Dios mío!_ It's the BIOS—I'll—I'll be _damned!"_ Saldana blurts out with surprising vehemence. She waves her hand around at the other computers in the room. "Whole system, the same _pinche_ thing?"

"I presume. Haven't had time to check them all out yet, though," Chuck answers.

He looks over his shoulder at Sarah. "So this virus—or maybe it's a worm selectively attacks only the so-called basic input-output system—the circuits that control the monitors, keyboards, touch screens, mice, and so on. All the means of communication with the outside world. It doesn't mess with the operating system or the core processors at all."

"You mean that all these computers are still functional—just _deaf, dumb, and blind?"_ Sarah asks him, catching on quickly. "All the data are still stored and intact?"

"I think so," replies Chuck. "I'm pretty sure of it, actually."

"Who'd come up with a virus like that?"

Chuck ponders this for a moment. "I suppose, someone who might want to be able to use the computers or get at the data later. Maybe our mystery saboteur has some way of getting past his or her own booby traps."

"What about _you?"_ Saldana asks him. "How are you going to get this malware out if you can't get in?"

"The difficult we do right away. The impossible might need a bit more time." Chuck looks to Sarah again. "How about that for a new Carmichael Industries slogan?"

"Think I've heard that used somewhere before," she says, "but I like it."

"I would think," continues Chuck, "that this must not have come in via the web. Something wide-eyed drooling crazy as this would have hit other systems and we'd all have heard about it by now. So it must have been brought into Deep Skillet physically—in hardware or firmware. Maybe something as simple as an infected thumb drive."

"Hey! _Hey!"_ says Sarah excitedly. "Chuck, you've just made my job a lot simpler. With that constraint I should be able to narrow down my profiling by quite a bit. Thanks, sweetie!" She gives him a kiss on the cheek and dashes back to her workstation.

Chuck sighs, leans back in his chair, and checks his watch. "We've still got about four hours until sunrise. Agent Saldana, I think you're gonna need to shop for some new BIOS chips and new peripherals. I'll make you a list. Then I'll get to work on turning this here Skillet back up to high temp."

* * *

**A little later**

In a concealed room—more like a vacant loading dock—separate from the main area of Deep Skillet, sits a solitary man in a wheelchair, carefully observing every move of Chuck and Sarah through one-way glass. The man is bald, with wire-frame glasses, and robust, at least from the waist up.

Agent Saldana appears and stands next to him. Together they watch for a while.

"How are we doing?" he asks her.

"Not bad at all, Professor."

"Has Chuck flashed?"

"Not that I have noticed. Apparently he hasn't needed to engage the Intersect—at least, not yet."

"He is as brilliant as I remember. And he has a formidable and dangerous wife and partner. Juanita, my dear, you would be well advised to handle them both with extreme care."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck. But until I finish this story at least, Chuck owns me.

**Fourth day, mid-afternoon, the apartment complex in Echo Park**

_(Music: "Good Riddance [Time Of Your Life]," by Green Day)_

As the Woodcomb family completes the last few bittersweet little chores in and around their empty apartment, before leaving it for good, Ellie slips away to the courtyard fountain. She sits on the edge and stares pensively at Chuck and Sarah's front door for a few minutes, until Devon comes looking for her.

"We've had a lot of fun times in this courtyard," he observes, sitting down next to her.

Ellie only nods yes, and tears appear in the corners of her eyes.

Devon gently puts an arm around her. "I'm sorry you weren't able to say goodbye to him."

Through her tears, Ellie chuckles. "I've gotten accustomed to that."

They sit quietly together for a moment, accompanied only by the gentle gurgling of the fountain and Ellie's occasional sad sniffles. Devon takes a pack of tissues from his pocket and offers one to his wife.

"Th—thanks," she says. "I keep thinking of all those times Chuck used to disappear for days without telling us anything. Before I knew what he and Sarah and Casey were really doing. Then, after I found out, all I cared about was my little brother's safety—"

"For good reason," Devon interjects.

"Well, yeah. But you know what? I'm actually hoping—honest to God hoping—that right now, he's off doing something like that again, just as long as it's with Sarah— _his_ Sarah, the real Sarah—there with him. Even if it's dangerous. Better _that_ than the pain he was feeling when we saw him last...Devon, is it awful for me to want that?"

"No, babe, it's not," he assures her. "They are who they are. And we've gotta trust that Sarah's car out back is a good sign. You know that Chuck wasn't going to give up on her—not ever."

"No, he wasn't." That thought cheers Ellie considerably. She takes another tissue to dab her eyes. "You're probably here to tell me it's time for us to leave, right?"

"Yes," Devon says. "I was over there talking with the movers about their route to Chicago. They said that going through Las Vegas and up to Denver is the shortest way by about a hundred miles, but there's some bad weather along the way in Utah. So they're going to take a more southerly route through Albuquerque and Oklahoma City. I was thinking we'd go that way too, if you don't have any objections."

"Why not?" asks Ellie with a shrug of her shoulders. "I don't mind bypassing Vegas."

 

 

* * *

**That evening, on the fifty-ninth floor of the La Plata Linda Hotel**

Because the most logical place for Team Carmichael to meet and debrief is the spacious and secure honeymoon suite, Chuck summons Morgan and Alex to join him and Sarah there for a working dinner. Room service brings them platters of grilled shrimp and andouille sausage over spicy rice, bowls of spring green salad, baskets of fresh-baked bread, chilled beers and sodas, topped off with a huge deep-dish apple pie and a gallon of honey vanilla ice cream...and happily, everything tests free of surveillance devices.

All four of them—half-starved after subsisting on nothing but a few snacks over the preceding night and day—dig in with gusto. They carry their heaping plates over to the panoramic windows, where they sit and look out over the Strip as it shifts back into full-on party mode from one end of town to the other.

In the middle of dinner, Chuck steps away to take a phone call from Agent Saldana. From across the room, Sarah watches him exchange a few words with their client, then glance back at her with a boyish grin that's been growing more and more familiar to her.

"What was that about?" Morgan asks him after he returns to the group.

"In a minute," says Chuck, sitting down next to Sarah on a white-and-silver couch with a heart-shaped back. "Let's get to our debriefing first. But do feel free to keep on enjoying this sumptuous feast, courtesy of the newly plumped-up C. I. expense account."

He passes a tablet computer to Morgan and Alex. "Let's start with the basic layout and system configurations for the Deep Skillet facility. Have a quick look now and you can study them in more detail later. I sketched these out from memory, of course—Saldana is none too keen on letting anything leak in or out of her pipeline, so to speak."

Sarah groans. "A really really _deeply_ buried pipeline. It's way too much like a CIA detention facility for my tastes."

"Geez!" Morgan exclaims as he navigates through Chuck's detailed drawings and notes on the tablet computer, with Alex looking over his shoulder. "That's a crapload of computing power packed in there. And the whole enchilada crashed from corrupted BIOS?"

"Seems to be," replies Chuck. "Sarah's still working out the backstory but she's already found something critically important. Would you bring 'em up to speed, please, babe...?"

Sarah puts down her beer. "Sure. I've been analyzing various intel streams to learn what I can about who might have sabotaged Deep Skillet—and maybe even why."

"We think it happened from the inside, somehow," Chuck says.

"That's right," continues Sarah. "I haven't identified any likely individual or group—but in the process I did discover that the timeline to the cyber-incident Saldana gave us doesn't quite match up with the facts."

"What do you mean?" Alex asks. "She misled you?"

"So it appears. Because, according to her, the CIA has been running Deep Skillet since 2009. But I found the utility invoices for the facility—the electricity bills from Hoover Dam. The dummy corporation fronting for the CIA has only been buying power since mid-May 2011. For at least two years before that, they weren't using any power to speak of. The facility was dormant."

Chuck toasts her with his beer bottle. "Brilliant, huh?" he asks Morgan and Alex. " She zeroed in on a little throwaway comment from Saldana about cheap power being a big selling point for the use of the old tunnel."

Sarah looks pleased, if a bit embarrassed. "Well, it was a fortunate guess. So now we know that the cyber-attack came _less than a week_ after Deep Skillet was brought on line by the CIA."

"Which might indicate a direct link between the first event and the other," notes Alex.

"That's exactly what Chuck and I thought," says Sarah. "Perhaps the Agency really brought us here to clean up a mess of its _own_ making." She stands up and carries her plate to the dessert trolley, homing in on the pie and ice cream.

"A mess that's ours to clean up, whatever the cause," Chuck notes. "Ball back to my court. I figure the only way to fix the infected machines is through some kind of kludged interface that the malware wouldn't recognize as an input-output device. Suggestions welcome."

Nobody speaks for a while. Chuck pulls on his beer while Sarah cuts a wedge of pie with surgical precision. Then Morgan's bushy eyebrows lift with an epiphany.

"Umm, buddy—maybe I shouldn't be saying this, given recent history—but there is _one_ device here that just might meet or exceed those specifications."

He points to Chuck's forehead.

"Wow," replies Chuck. "Hadn't thought of that—"

Sarah drops the pie server with a loud clatter and looks at Chuck with alarm.

"What if that's what they _want?_   What if they _know_ about you?"

"Wow," Chuck says again. "Hadn't thought of _that_ either. Wow." He links his fingers behind his head, leans back, and stares up at the ceiling. Sarah comes back across the room quickly and sits down beside him on the couch.

"Maybe it's my turn to suggest that we bail on this job?" she asks him, gently.

"Dunno," Chuck says, looking into her worried eyes while mustering as much confidence as he can. "Hate to do that now. I—we—we should think and talk about all our options."

He squeezes Sarah's hand and turns back to the whole team.

"Anyway, we don't have to decide on that quite yet. Saldana called to say that it would take eight to twelve hours for the new peripherals to be delivered to Deep Skillet and installed. So the place is down and we all have to take the night off. We'll meet up again tomorrow at noon."

"Mandatory fun," says Morgan, who's slipped over to the dessert trolley. "In _Vegas._ Geez, that could be tough. Hey Sarah, are you going to eat this piece of pie...?"

Not long afterward, Morgan and Alex have departed for their mandatory fun and the dinner dishes have all been taken away. Chuck and Sarah are still sitting on the couch, enjoying the city lights, with his arm around her back and her head on his shoulder.

"And what about us, Sarah? Do you want to go out, or just kick back here?"

"Take me out dancing, Chuck," she replies without hesitation. "Last week at the Russian consulate, we were so good—but I wasn't in the right state of mind to appreciate it. I'd like to try it again with you."

She gives him an awkward but sweet smile. "I even brought the navy blue dress."

Chuck is delighted. "I'll get my suit." He rises from the couch and extends a hand to his wife to help her up. Then he slaps his forehead and rolls his eyes. "Oops, before I do—almost forgot I need to make a quick call. To Ellie. Hope she still has her secure phone."

"Oh right!" exclaims Sarah, headed for the wardrobe. "I completely forgot...you two haven't talked since we left, and she's probably really anxious for you by now."

"Yeah, that's part of it. But I also gave something to Ellie that I didn't think I'd want back, not quite so soon anyway." He pulls out his iPhone to call his sister. "I'll explain while we're getting ready."

 

 

* * *

**Forty minutes later**

In the sequined navy blue dress and the well-cut charcoal-grey suit, Sarah and Chuck are perfectly outfitted for an elegant night as they ride the glass elevator down to the hotel lobby, on a mission to locate the concierge and—by any means necessary—extract his expert advice on the best place in Vegas to boogie.

"How 'bout we agree to no more talk of malware or dams or anything going wrong?" Chuck suggests. "Not tonight, anyway. Deal?"

"Deal," says Sarah fervently, grabbing his arm and swaying in an exaggerated way to the canned jazz playing in the elevator cab.

Chuck laughs. "Babe, if you can look _that_ good with music that bad, I can't wait to get you out on an actual dance floor."

"Huh-uh, be careful what you wish for! All I'll say is I hope you took your vitamins this morning, 'cause I'm—"

She's interrupted by the buzzing of her iPhone.

"It's Alex...Hi Alex, what's up? You're—wait, you're in trouble _where?_ He's _what?_ It's okay, it's okay—we're actually on our way down now and we'll be there right away. Just keep him away from there until we find you. Don't worry."

After she ends the call, Sarah sighs. "Roulette. Morgan."

"That was fast," replies Chuck. "Oh well...at least we won't be underdressed."

"Speaking of which...here, turn this way. Hmm—your tie's not quite straight." She adjusts it. "There. Perfect!"

The elevator reaches the ground floor. Sarah and Chuck walk briskly across the busy hotel lobby and into the vast, lavish, crowded La Plata Linda Casino.

"Where should we look?" he asks.

"There's nowhere you can sit for free in a Las Vegas casino," Sarah says. "Alex said she got him away from the roulette tables, so my guess is they're at the bar."

They are. Morgan sits, staring vacantly out at the casino floor, clutching a glass of what looks like grape soda, with a little umbrella sticking out of it. A few low-dollar chips are scattered on the bar in front of him. Alex sits on the next stool, downcast, with her hands resting limply on his shoulders.

"Hey, _hey_ , you guys," Chuck calls out to them. "Whatever you lost, it can't be as awful as you're making it look."

"About seventeen grand," Morgan mumbles. "I thought I could win it back—kept trying and trying and...I'm so sorry, buddy. I screwed up big time."

"It was _my_ fault," argues Alex. "I suggested he try his hand at playing rou—"

"How did you get _that_ much money to gamble with?" Sarah interjects.

"Room key," replies Morgan. He takes it out of his pocket and drops it on the bar. "Just showed it, and like that they gave me a players account and a line of credit."

"Credit on the _company_ tab, you mean," Sarah counters, a tinge of ice in her voice.

Chuck waves his hands. "It's all right—take it easy—let's not all freak out, okay? Morgan, Alex...don't worry." He puts an arm around each of them. "I made this same mistake myself once. Except that it was government funds, and as I recall it was, um, a little bit north of seventeen thousand—"

 _"Hah!"_   Sarah blurts out. _"That's_ an understatement! And I was so angry with you—I couldn't believe you'd...you'd be…."

Her voice trails off as Chuck turns toward her in surprise. They stare at each other: open-mouthed at first, then beaming with shared delight.

"I can fix this," Chuck says after a moment, addressing Morgan but still looking into Sarah's eyes. "How much is left?"

Morgan sorts through the chips on the bar. "Looks like about two hundred. Sorry."

"Leave me half of that. Then go cash in the rest, get out of here, and take Alex to a movie or something. You got that?"

"Yeah buddy, I got it. Really sorry." Morgan scoops up his room key and a few of the chips, then takes Alex's hand and shamedly leads her through the crowd toward the cashier.

"And _thanks,"_ Alex yells out as they disappear from view.

Sarah kisses her husband. "I'm sorry that I was starting to lose my temper with them. I was feeling a little peeved about us being diverted from our primary mission."

"We'll get there, baby. Lots of night left. Just have to complete this sub-mission first." He gathers the five twenty-dollar chips Morgan left on the bar, and places them in her hand. "You know, Sarah, my epic fail at roulette has haunted me ever since it happened. Even then I should have known better."

"Bottom line was you were trying to impress me, weren't you?"

"I was. Instead—one of my dumbest moves ever. But still, I'm really glad that you remembered it. Especially because now I've got a chance to make up for it. Sort of."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, C. I. can probably handle the loss, but Morgan's really bummed—and I know _exactly_ how he feels. So we're going to go win back what he lost. Then, dancing."

"Playing roulette? Oh sure," says Sarah, nudging him with her elbow. "I mean, I did just recall that you lost a hundred thousand once on a single spin. Should I have also remembered that you've become a much better player since then?"

 _"Upgraded_ is probably a better way to describe it," Chuck explains in a subdued tone. "You know that with the Intersect I'm able to compute the trajectories of hazardous things like throwing stars coming at me in a split-second—fast enough that I can dodge them. Right?"

"Right…"

"So, in theory, I should also be able to compute the trajectory of one little ball rolling around and around inside a rotating wheel for whole seconds at a time. Don't you think?"

"Did you ever actually _try_ it?"

"Oh, dozens of times," Chuck replies. "But only in my head. Still, we clearly have little to lose," he adds, nodding at Sarah's small fistful of twenty-dollar chips. He puts his arm around her and pivots them both in the direction of the roulette tables.

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go break the bank," says Sarah, scrunching in closer to Chuck as they stroll together across the casino, her eyes sparkling with amusement as her fingers toy with the chips in her hand. "Your devil-may-care confidence is catching— _and_ a turn-on."

"Part of the plan," he says with a sly smile.

Chuck locates a table with twenty-dollar minimum betting, and leads Sarah to it. At the sight of the lovely, leggy blonde in the glamorous sequined black dress, the bettors crowded around the table part to let her in. With Chuck standing directly behind her, Sarah sets their five chips in a stack on the edge of the table, to be exchanged for the special chips used in roulette. The other players do double-takes at the seeming mismatch between Chuck and Sarah's dressy attire and their meager stake. But the dealer is nothing but cordial.

"Your preference, madam?" he asks her, holding out a large tray of roulette chips arrayed in a rainbow of different colors. Sarah checks the table to see what colors are already in use.

"Chocolate brown, I think," she tells the dealer. "Always a lucky color for me." She smiles as Chuck leans forward and kisses the back of her head. The dealer sweeps her stack into a receptacle and passes five brown chips to her.

Chuck turns his attention to the croupier at the rotating silvery wheel at the other end of the table—and triggers a flash.

 _"Let me check out a couple of his spins first,"_ he whispers in Sarah's ear. She nods, almost imperceptibly.

The croupier tosses the ball counter to the spin of the wheel. It rolls around the outside again and again, as the gamblers hurriedly put their bets down across the numbered squares and colored bars of the green felt layout.

_"When we're ready, babe, we'll stick to inside bets. Much bigger payoffs when we hit."_

_"Roger that,"_ Sarah whispers back. _"In and done before they know what happened."_

After several revolutions of the ball, the croupier waves a hand and the dealer calls out "No more bets!" All eyes at the table are on the ball as it gradually slows down and drops—into the green double-zero pocket. It's the best outcome for the house, and the gamblers groan, almost as one. The dealer collects all of the bets, and then the next game begins.

With players throwing chips down frantically on both sides of her, Sarah stands coolly by, as Chuck brings his supercomputer brain to bear on the multiple motions of the croupier's hand, the wheel, and the ball…which lands on eleven black. A few players who made low-risk outside bets on odd versus even or the color black win nominal payouts, but most of them lose again.

The croupier sends the ball out again. Chuck studies it as it circles the wheel, subliminally tracking its changing position and velocity for the Intersect to process. In his mind, Chuck sees the wheel slowing down until he can read the numbers on the pockets; sees the ball losing momentum and descending inexorably toward one specific pocket...

_"Got it—33. One chip, corner bet on 33. Let's start small."_

Sarah snaps into action and plunks a chip down on the intersection of the 32, 33, 35, and 36 boxes, about a half-second before the dealer halts the betting. Then she resumes her calm, controlled pose, waiting for the outcome.

Thirty-three wins, for an eight-to-one payout on the corner bet. The dealer sweeps away all the chips but Sarah's, then deftly stacks eight more on top of hers. She collects them as Chuck kisses the back of her head again and whispers more instructions.

Sarah wagers forty on another corner bet, this time on 9, and earns another eightfold payout. She has a sizable pile of chips in front of her now. She leans back as if for another kiss, but instead presses her lips to Chuck's ear.

 _"You...are hot!"_ she tells him, and punctuates that with a playful bite on his earlobe. _"But are we going too fast? Maybe sandbag 'em for a round or two to keep security at bay?"_ She points with her eyes at the camera directly above them.

 _"Good idea."_ He looks over her shoulder to the spinning roulette wheel just as the croupier throws the ball again. _"Straight bet anywhere you like, then. Just leave me five hundred."_

Sarah bets on zero. The ball lands on 25. A man in a studded black leather jacket on the other side of the table wins his even-money bet on red and starts cheering lustily, drawing all the attention to him.

 _"Perfect,"_ Chuck whispers. _"Let's finish this, babe. Queue up the five hundred. Straight bet."_

Sarah's heart starts beating faster. She takes a calming breath and stacks the chips tightly in front of her, ready to slide them all onto the layout.

Chuck flashes again as the croupier sends the ball on its way.

"Place your bets—place your bets, ladies and gentlemen," the dealer calls out.

The ball circles...Sarah's hands are on the chips...

Chuck leans forward. _"Seventeen—go for it!"_

Sarah slides the stacks smoothly across the green felt and deposits them dead center on the black 17 square. The bettors on each side of her gawk—then throw a few chips of their own down on the same square.

"No more bets!" cries the dealer.

The ball goes around once, twice more...slows, and drops into the 17 pocket, for a 35-to-one payout on the straight bets by Sarah and her two fortunate neighbors.

 _"Yes!"_ shouts Sarah as Chuck grabs her from behind and lifts her up in victory. The other players around the table break out in applause.

 _"I love you,"_ Chuck and Sarah whisper in each other's ear.

The dealer starts stacking brown roulette chips on the 17 square. Sarah stops him before he can finish.

"Thank you, but we'll cash out now. Quit while you're ahead, y'know?"

"Sure thing, madam," replies the dealer. He gives her seventeen thousand-dollar and two five-hundred-dollar casino chips. Sarah leaves both five-hundred-dollar chips on the table for a tip—earning appreciative salutes from the dealer and croupier—while Chuck rakes the thousand-dollar chips into a cup.

They step away from the table and hustle across the floor to the cashier cages, where they use their winnings to settle the company tab.

"Whew," sighs Chuck. "Now that was an interesting experiment—and Morgan Grimes is fully redeemed."

Sarah slings her arms around his neck and pulls his face close to hers.

"And so is Chuck Bartowski," she murmurs. "That was very, very impressive. The epic fail of the past is redacted. _Now_ maybe we can go dancing."

They begin to kiss, and then—

"Excuse me." The voice is deep, gravelly, and very close. Sarah and Chuck break their embrace and instinctively position themselves back-to-back. They find themselves flanked by three brawny men wearing dark suits and earpieces.

"Casino security," one of the men says, holding out an ID. "Pardon the imposition, but our supervisor would like to speak with you both." He points to a row of darkened glass windows high on one wall.

"No, no, no, _no!"_ replies Chuck, sounding as indignant as he can. "My wife and I have plans for the rest of the evening. We're done in here, I assure you."

The big man looks abashed. "Sir, I'm sorry, but if you don't come with us we do have the option to call the Las Vegas Metro Police. They'd be here before you got out of the building."

Chuck turns to look at Sarah, who shrugs her shoulders in resignation.

"Okay then, I guess," he says—and they follow the three security men through a door marked NO ADMITTANCE just to the side of the cashier cages. The men lead them along a short corridor and up a flight of stairs.

"Don't worry," Sarah says softly to Chuck as they climb the stairs. "This time I'm armed."

One floor up, they arrive at another door with a keycard lock. The lead security man swipes his ID and holds the door open for Sarah and Chuck to enter. The room is compact; full of active monitor screens and fronted by a wall of one-way glass that provides a view of the entire casino floor.

A trim man with close-cropped grey hair, in a rumpled jacket and loosened tie that speak of a overlong workday, rises from a desk and comes over to greet them. Chuck and Sarah hesitantly shake hands with him. Like the three men who brought them upstairs, this one is also wearing an earpiece.

"Mr. and Ms. Carmichael. My name is Steve Rosen. I direct casino security ops for our parent corporation. Thank you for joining me. Can I offer you anything to drink—something from the bar downstairs perhaps?"

"No thank you," Chuck curtly replies. Sarah says nothing but keeps her eyes on the three burly security men.

"No problem," says Rosen. "Please have a seat." His men slide two chairs over to the front of his desk, and then leave the room.

Chuck and Sarah reluctantly sit down, as Rosen returns to his chair. He reaches for a single monitor screen atop his desk and pivots it in their direction. Not unexpectedly, it is displaying a video recording of Chuck and Sarah at the roulette table a few minutes earlier.

Rosen puts his elbows on the desk and nods toward the screen. "I could probably watch this a hundred more times and still not figure out how you did it. I don't suppose either of you would care to save me the trouble."

"What can we say?" asks Chuck. "Lucky night."

"Mr. Carmichael, these days, major casinos like ours make use of statistical software that enables us to distinguish blind luck from artifice."

"You're bluffing, Mr. Rosen," Chuck fires back. "You wouldn't be able to tell because we weren't playing long enough. There weren't enough spins for a robust statistical analysis."

Rosen abruptly sits up and looks at Chuck and Sarah with greater respect and curiosity.

"You're right, of course. I know you two pulled something—probably involving a computer hidden somewhere—but I have no way to confirm that. And I did find it interesting that you left the roulette table as soon as you had recouped your associate's earlier losses—a Mr. Grimes, I believe?—almost to the dollar. You walked away. Interesting... _and_ unusual."

"Truth is," says Sarah, "we're in town for business, not leisure. My husband and I never intended to play more than a few spins anyway. It was just good fortune that we came out a little bit ahead."

At that, Rosen throws his head back and laughs. "Good fortune indeed, Ms. Carmichael! And since you brought it up, what exactly is your firm's line of work?"

"Cyber-security," Chuck quickly replies. He pulls out a C. I. business card and slides it across the desk to Rosen, who studies it for a moment, then laughs again.

"Nerds for hire, eh? Why am I not surprised? Okay, let me try a different tack. If I can't get you to reveal the _modus operandi_ that beat our roulette wheels...maybe I can contract for your services instead? Show us how to upgrade our defenses to better protect us against—well, against the next generation of tech-savvy scammers? No offense intended, of course."

Chuck and Sarah raise eyebrows at each other.

"None taken," says Chuck. "Is that a serious offer, Mr. Rosen?"

"Absolutely it is," the security chief replies, handing Chuck one of his own business cards. "And our parent firm operates gaming properties on four continents, so who knows where this could all lead."

"Well, we'll certainly consider it..." Chuck looks over at his wife, who nods in agreement.

"...but right now, we're already on a missh—" _(Sarah pinches his thigh—hard!)_ "—on a _project_ here in town that'll take a few more days to wrap up."

"Just give me a call when you're ready."

All three rise from their chairs, and Rosen holds out his hand to Sarah and Chuck once again. This time, they shake it enthusiastically.

"Oh, and I'm going to comp your suite," he tells them, "for as long as you're staying with us at the La Plata Linda."

"That's _very_ generous of you, Mr. Rosen," Sarah says.

He winks at her. "Professional courtesy, Ms. Carmichael. I'm ex-Naval Intelligence—and I'm pretty sure that I see—how should I put it?—a pair of kindred spirits in the two of you. Is there anything else I can do?"

"Possibly," Sarah replies. She takes Chuck's hand in both of hers. "We were planning to go out dancing tonight. We're looking for some place that's fun and lively and a bit on the fancy side. Any recommendations?"

Rosen scrutinizes them for a second. "Do you two like to samba?"

"Have we done that?" Sarah asks Chuck.

"Yeah we did. Loved it."

"Perfect," says Rosen. He reaches for his phone. "The Brazilian television network _Rede Globo_ has a delegation in town for a business meeting. As we speak they are hosting a rather large and festive gala occupying all of the ballrooms on our fourth floor. I'll arrange VIP invitations for you both."

 

 

* * *

**Four hours later, in the honeymoon suite**

Chuck and Sarah return to their suite a little bit drunk, a little bit flushed and sweaty, with their attire a little bit askew and their arms around each other, laughing loudly and incessantly over the adventures of the evening.

"Can you _believe_ that, baby?" Chuck asks Sarah as he fumbles with his key card. "Both of us invited to Rio to audition for—what did they call that show again?"

 _"Dança dos Famosos,"_ she replies in proper—if slightly slurred—Portuguese. "I think they were just being nice to us...but you _were_ really good, and no flashes required."

"Like I told them, I had the world's best dance instructor."

Chuck eventually gets the door open and bids Sarah enter. As he follows, she turns to ambush him in the doorway—grabbing his tie to pull herself against him for a long kiss.

"Okay, now you can take that tie off," Sarah tells him, and then heads for the bathroom. "Meet you over by the windows in _juuuust_ a sec."

Outside, the final silver-and-gold fireworks display of the night is underway. On the inside of the thick, tinted windows of the honeymoon suite there is no sound, and the view of the blazing midair bursts and fountains is almost kaleidoscopic. Captivated by the sight, Chuck distractedly slips off his tie and jacket and undoes the top few buttons of his white dress shirt.

He settles down on the heart-shaped couch to wait for Sarah.

_(Music: "A Question and an Answer," by Tim Jones)_

"Baby?" he calls out to her.

"What is it, Chuck?" she asks from inside the bathroom.

"I was thinking—"

"Dangerous thing to do at this time of night."

"Ha—yeah maybe, but ever since we got to Vegas we've been at full throttle. We haven't had a second to spare, to talk about how you're doing, how you're adjusting—how you're _feeling_ —you know?"

"How I'm feeling?" Sarah asks with a gentle laugh, suddenly very close behind him. "That's really sweet—as always."

Chuck turns his head in the direction of Sarah's voice, just as she flips herself smoothly over the back of the couch and lands outstretched in his lap. She wraps her arms around him, and he does the same to her. They begin to caress and kiss each other, oblivious to the fireworks still going off outside.

 _"Mmmm_ —feeling _very_ good," Sarah murmurs. She has on a white terrycloth robe, and as far as Chuck can determine, nothing underneath it. As they kiss, Sarah subtly works one hand in to finish unbuttoning Chuck's shirt. Then, in one swift motion, she slips her arms around his back and peels the shirt up and off him completely.

 _"Too much, too soon?"_ she whispers in his ear.

"You're kidding, I hope." Chuck rises from the couch with Sarah in his arms, and carries her over to the honeymoon bed. As he gently sets her down, her robe slips open, and Chuck can see that she is in fact wearing something else: her black leather holster full of throwing knives, strapped to her inner thigh.

"Oops. Forgot something," says Sarah, with an expression half innocent and half devilish.

Chuck bends closer and grins. "That's dangerous, babe. Somebody could get hurt."

"You're right. I think you're _just_ going to have to take that off for me...Uh-uh- _uhh!_ Didn't say you could use your hands..."

 

 

* * *

**Some time after that...**

Sarah and Chuck lie on the bed together in full-length embrace, all but out of breath, their hearts drumming, her head on his chest, each gazing into the other's eyes.

Eventually, Sarah says, "Only my loving husband could possibly know me as well as _that."_

Chuck kisses her forehead. "I think you were recollecting some important wifely things yourself there. Just sayin'."

Sarah giggles and tightens her hold on him. They're both silent for a while, and then...

"You know," she tells Chuck, "this room, this bed, way up above the city like this—it's just like Paris again, isn't it?"

"You remember _Paris?"_

"Ohhh yes—I do. And that long, slow train ride afterward. That was so wonderful that we almost quit spying all together. Right? Huh— _tee-hee!—_ I'm suddenly remembering a lot of intimate details, aren't I?"

Chuck sits up excitedly. "And the night after you rescued me in Thailand? Or our actual honeymoon? Do you remember?"

Sarah scratches her forehead. "Hmm. No, I don't think I do. I guess I'm going to need more help with those."

"Well what are we waiting for?" asks Chuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story continues...in "Chuck Versus What Happens In Vegas, Part 2" — right here on AO3!


End file.
